Chapter 20
The wooden chair creaked under my weight as I joined Iaso at her table, overlooking the greenhouse and the sunrise behind it.
A multitude of tiny vials lined her table, each filled with a green liquid. They looked similar to the tonic she’d given me in Auryna, but smelled very different, more bitter and much stronger.
“Did you know who I was at the tavern that night?” I asked, filling another vial and sliding the cork in.
She smiled and glanced up from her mortar. “Yes.”
“How? Or better yet, why? Did you know he was going to do what he did the next day?”
She dropped her eyes back to her mixture, grinding it with the pestle. “Surprisingly, no.” She took a deep breath and set the bowl on the table. “Can I be truthful with you?”
I eyed her, trepidation settling in my gut. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear her next words, but I couldn’t have said anything but “Yes,” if I wanted to.
She worried her lip like she was considering whether she should say anything at all.
“Well, go on. Spit it out,” I urged with a nervous chuckle.
“Vaelor was going to tell you everything, because he knew you’d be at the meeting, and then… Then, he was going to say goodbye. Permanently.”
The vial slipped from my hands and shattered on the floor, but I didn’t pull my gaze from hers. I didn’t move, and neither did she.
“He knew you would see him in the meeting, as Godrick had alerted him he was bringing another daughter this year, and Vaelor didn’t want you to find out by seeing him in the meeting. That’s why he asked you to meet him.”
Was my heart still beating? Or was there a storm in my chest, crackling and pounding and relentless?
“I can’t breathe,” I whispered under my breath.
I had been angry with him for not telling me, for taking me, for so many things, but to know he planned to end our friendship once and for all hurt infinitely more.
Never seeing his face again.
Never hearing his laugh.
Never seeing him lost in his artwork.
Never smelling his scent, the one that comforted my soul in a way nothing else ever had.
Never…
My eyes fell to the table, my hand to my chest. “Never?”
Iaso stood and walked around the table before kneeling carefully to avoid the glass and placing her hands on my knees. Warmth flowed from her palms, and I gasped, shoving the chair back.
I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t want air. I didn’t want Wryn to leave me.
Had I been pursuing someone who hadn’t truly wanted me? Or was his want merely lust?
Mine wasn’t. I didn’t just want his body. I wanted his soul, his mind, his heart. I wanted his artistic eyes to gaze at me for eternity. I wanted to bake for him until he was soft under my touch, so we could laugh and joke about the days when he was all muscle. I wanted to be at his side until our skin wrinkled and the sun set over the world and?—
Whatever air remained in my lungs left, and I was gasping, hyperventilating.
My skin would wrinkle much sooner than his.
I would be dust among the stars by the time he ever wrinkled at all. I hadn’t thought of that before, because I was foolish—hopelessly, foolishly optimistic. Naive. But surely he had.
Of course, Wryn was afraid. If he let himself love me, he would lose me.
“I envy your hope, although I fear it may be based in your own innocence.”
He was right. He was always right, and this whole thing had been a lapse in judgment on his part. I had taken that lapse for something it wasn’t, for something it could never be.
He did want me, and that was the problem. He’d said that, and I thought I had understood, but now… Now, I truly understood the depth of his fear and hesitation.
“Breathe,” Iaso whispered.
“I…cannot.” My ribs were tight, my lungs empty. I sucked in breath after strangled breath, but no air came.
I had been pushing him to inevitable heartbreak, and he knew that but had never told me. Maybe he thought I knew, because what sane person wouldn’t realize that? I was setting him up for devastation.
I will not do that to him. I cannot. “I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.”
“Calm, child. Calm.” Iaso’s palms grew hot, and I jerked to my feet.
“No.” I waved my hand through the air. “No, I cannot be calm right now.”
I turned to stride out of the room, only to find Alden standing in the doorway. His skin was wrinkled.
“How old are you?” I asked out of desperation, feeling my world await his answer.
“771,” he replied.
My world crumbled. My knees buckled and cracked on the stone floor as I fell to them, the blood draining from my face.
Hundreds of years.
He would live hundreds of years without me, even if I lived to be the oldest human in existence.
His expression turned soft, rich with an empathy I didn’t want when he stepped forward, his gray robes swishing around his feet. There was no way he could know why I’d asked, but he looked at me like he read my thoughts.
When his forehead wrinkled with his furrowed brows, I suddenly felt nothing at all, my eyes unfocused, looking but no longer seeing as they sank to the stone floor.
I wondered if Wryn’s skin would wrinkle that way when he reached such an old age. Would he grow his hair long? Would it turn white? Would he wear ridiculous robes like an old maestor?
Would he remember me after he’d lived such a long and full life? I hoped his life was full—full of love and bravery and laughter. I hoped he learned to let down his walls for someone. I hoped someone would teach him it was okay to be afraid as long as he didn’t let it win.
Fear could never win. He needed to know that, even if it wasn’t me who convinced him.
“What does the bond mean?” The words left me of their own volition, my mouth moving faster than my brain or any other part of my body—all except my heart, which still pounded painfully against its tightening cage.
I’d been waiting for Wryn to explain it. I didn’t want to hear it from anyone else, but for some unfathomable reason, my soul needed to know here and now.
Iaso’s hands landed on my shoulders, warm once again. “The bond?”
“Wryn can smell me because of some bond. Why?”
They were both silent for too long, but I couldn’t be bothered to lift my eyes. It didn’t truly matter, I supposed, because I would only last a small fraction of Wryn’s life.
“That’s not our place to say,” Alden whispered.
“Iaso,” I pleaded, resting my hand on top of hers. “I need to know. Please.”
“The mate bond,” she said in a rush.
A tear slid down my cheek, and I swore I heard a crack emanate from my heart. The lack of air and my unwillingness to search for it caught up with me, stars sparking in my vision.
The mate bond?
“I didn’t know humans could even have mates,” I whispered, too low for them to hear. “I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything.”
The fire flared in the fireplace then, and we all gasped. A letter floated gently from the flames, drifting as if on a breeze until it landed in front of me. A strangled laugh left me—I certainly did not feel entirely safe right now.
What would have happened had I felt so unsafe that the letter couldn’t find me? Would it have gone to my chambers? My home in Auryna? To Wryn himself, the one who had always made me feel the safest?
No,I thought, it wouldn’t go to him.
My hands trembled when I leaned forward to lift it. It was small, the edges burned like the spell had been a little butchered but said well enough to still work.
I unfolded it and recognized the handwriting immediately. A choked sob broke from me, tears welling in my eyes thick enough to blur the words into unreadable scribbles, so I clutched the letter to my chest and sat back on my heels.
Alden sat on the floor in front of me and crossed his legs—an almost goofy sight, as he was every bit as tall as Wryn, and his knees stuck high in the air. A smile curved my lips when I glanced up at him, my cheeks soaked with rolling tears.
His eyes were warm, albeit concerned. “Who is it from?”
Another cry slipped from my lips, still curved into a growing grin.
“Child, spit it out before we assume the worst.” Iaso joined Alden on the floor in front of me.
I wiped my eyes with my palms and looked down at the letter once again.
“My sister.” I took a slow breath to calm my frayed nerves. “It’s from my sister, Alivia.”
Dear El,
Vaelor found me in the Capitol and taught me the spell. He told me we could communicate this way, so I really, really hope it works. He made me practice a few times, and I think I accidentally burned through an entire book of parchment before it went anywhere, but you know the old language isn’t my strong suit. I also asked if this made me a witch, but he only laughed and brushed it off, so…if you could answer that in your next letter, that’d be great.
All I have to say today is I miss you. I miss you so much, it hurts, but I think about what you may be doing or seeing or experiencing and… Well, don’t come back, El. Live. Be happy and explore this new world and take this opportunity and make it yours.
Remember this above all else: you are the light in a very dark world, and I know that you brighten the land wherever you go. Never lose that. Never dim. Never dull.
Shine, and live.
I love you with every bone in my damned body.
Write me back soon.
Love,
Alivia, the poor girl you left behind
PS. Out of pure curiosity, have you and Vaelor…touched, if you know what I mean? (This is the part where I wink and nudge you with my elbow, and you swat me away, but I have to know. You must tell me.) At the very least, is he less boring when he’s so infatuated with you?
“Wryn taught her to send letters through the flames?” I asked aloud, more out of confusion than anything. My head snapped up. “He’s not here?”
Iaso and Alden glanced to each other, a soft smile gracing Iaso’s full lips before she turned to me. “No, he left for Rainsmyre last night. Although, it would appear he made a detour.”
I should be thankful he did. I was thankful, but I couldn’t stop the hurt that wound through my chest. He left without even a goodbye. “How long will he be gone for?”
“He didn’t say,” Alden answered.
I swallowed hard. Perhaps this was just the beginning of our slow estrangement. It should be. I should take this time to heal and grow apart from him. I should let him live because any time with me would just be…pointless. Perhaps he knew that. Perhaps that was why he left.
“This may be a strange request, but does your family have any cottages anywhere? We used to have a small house to get away to, and I frequented it often.” When I needed to be alone, to think and weep and mourn without others seeing or worrying.
The last time I’d visited our own cottage, it’d been on the twenty-first anniversary of my parents’ death.
Wait. My blood chilled, the parchment in my hand crumpling in my shaking fist. What day is it?
Dates flew threw my head, over and over, checking and rechecking. That trip had been on their anniversary a year ago…last week. Five days ago, to be exact.
I’d forgotten their anniversary. An entire day, twenty-four hours, one thousand, four hundred, and forty minutes, the few seconds it took for our carriage to go from rolling down the road to crushed and sinking, passed by without a single thought.
Two lives. Two deaths. Two parents.
My parents, forgotten.
Shame slithered through me so viciously, I thought I might expel breakfast right here on Iaso’s floor. I braced a hand on my stomach, not letting it show on my face.
I tried not to think of them often, because their loss threatened to pull me under that river again, icy and suffocating and biting. I could still feel the lick of freezing water on my bare skin if I fell too far into the past.
But once a year, I went to our family’s cottage alone and allowed myself to feel every ounce of longing, every ounce of pain and hurt. I let myself grieve the memories that would never be, the hugs I would never feel, the words I would never hear. I mourned the day I would walk down the aisle without them, the day my first child was born and neither of them would hold him or her. I cried for the day my future child asked about their grandparents, and I would finally have to tell the story. They wouldn’t be here for their first smile or first laugh or first steps. They would never be here, just like they hadn’t been for the last twenty-two years.
Yes, I need to go. I need solitude and the freedom to shatter.
My bottom lip quivered, my throat tight, but I forced a smile on my face so they wouldn’t see it. I didn’t fear crying or showing emotion in front of others—I never had—but this pain, these tears, were mine. They were raw and deep and sharp, and I wouldn’t dare inflict it on anyone else.
Now, at least, I could grieve my parents and Wryn at the same time. On this trip, I could let him go, and then, next year, when I visited the cottage again, it would hurt a little less. Each year would hurt less, I knew that, and eventually, he would join my parents as nothing more than an ache in my chest, uncomfortable but bearable.
Isn’t that convenient? I’ll knock out two birds with one stone.
Alden smiled, but it, too, was almost sad. “We do, actually. Would you like me to escort you? It’s merely a few hours ride.”
Iaso’s gaze clung to him, her expression unreadable. She tilted her head to the side, placing a hand over his. “It’ll be like she’s getting to meet her,” she whispered, low enough that I could barely understand her. “She would love her, you know.”
My stomach sank. They were clearly talking about me, but also someone else, another she.
I didn’t ask about her, though, not yet. I couldn’t handle his sadness and mine at the same time. “Yes, I would love that, Alden.”